Let the Dead Bury the Dead
by blackveins
Summary: This is a continuation of my other Harry Potter stories. If you read them, the background makes perfect sense. In this arch, Severus finally sets out into the world after teaching at Hogwarts and supposedly dying.
1. Leaving So Soon?

(( A/N: PLEASE READ: Forging Forgotten Memories and Blood and Roses before reading on. ))

Severus tossed his possessions in his suitcase without much thought as to what they were. His suitcase had been enchanted to sort his belongings for him, so he didn't even need to fold the billowing robes he tossed into the bag. This would be the first time he had moved since he had come to the school at eleven. It had been countless years since he had started teaching.

Severus took the black Daisy plant he nurtured in his personal quarters and put it into the bag with more care. Under it, he found his old silver mirror. The mirror reflected the face of a blond haired blue eyed boy that he knew to be himself. It was strange to be so personal with such an unfamiliar face. He set the mirror on the bed and continued packing.

He threw the tie he had kept from his school into the bag like it was a dead rat, and even slipped his wrought iron lamp and slipped it into the bag. Parchment, quills, ink, pajamas... There were too many things from the many years he had lived here. Even the journal that he kept at his bedside, only to be written in once a year and have the pages ripped out.

Severus wandered to the bed again and stared at the mirror. He had asked the mirror to show him his worst memory, and it always took him first to the day he had called Lily that horrible name, before it divulged the other horrors of his life to him... but something felt different today. "Lithe... Show me what you see." He spoke softly to the old mirror. The boy's face swirled black, then back to white.

The image turned to someone he had not seen for a very long time. "Can you believe this wretched school lets non-human beasts parade around as normal students? I hate the lot of them." A childish black haired boy spat at a beautiful black haired Ravenclaw girl. The image choked Severus up so badly, he nearly shed a tear on the spot.

A horrible moment he had all but forgotten. The girl had told him that she was a vampire, that she loved him, that she trusted him, that she would never forget him... and without a care he had snapped that he had hated her. He had never even apologized for his mistake. It was true that he had hated the werewolf but after years of contemplation, he could never bring himself to hate his vampiric friend. Not for an instant.

There was no way to find the girl again, he had never seen or heard of her since that day. For all he knew, his friend Auren was long since dead. He dearly hoped that she had not gotten staked by a moron like Lockhart The thought made him shake. Suddenly Severus wished he could reach into the mirror and stroke her hair as he had never thought to do before.

The mirror flipped to images of a childish him ignoring the beautiful girl as she spilled her heart to him. The hours she had sat by his bedside when he had gotten a bad case of the floogen-flu. When she had come down with the same sickness, he had visited her only once. Severus wished he had a time turner so he could go back and slap himself.

He still loved Lily, but that was no excuse for mistreating the loyal friend he had in Auren. Severus caught himself whispering apologies to the mirror and quickly set the offensive object down. That life was over. The man that girl had cared about was dead now. He was beginning a new life, looking like Lucius Malfoys long lost brother no doubt.

Severus hated looking like a Malfoy, but he couldn't take his old looks back. He was suppose to be dead. Severus threw the mirror into the bag with malice, what he wouldn't have given for his father to have been the man who now now followed him in the form of a dog.

An idea came to him... He could turn Dog back into a man now. He was already on the run, no one would recognize two dead men any more than they would one. "Here boy." Severus tapped his leg to call the animal over from the corner of the room. The dog hopped up and loped over.

Severus cast several charms over the dog to discern what type of magic had changed him. He had never really thought to look before, because there was never a time that Dog being a man would have been any good. The spell was complex, but old. It was difficult, but Severus managed a counter spell.

There was a high chance that the counterspell only worked because of the age of the original spell. As the form twisted and contorted, Severus pulled a robe from his bag and tossed it around the quaking mass. There was a yelping sound that turned into gruff laughter. "Finally figured it out, my boy..."


	2. Who to Blame?

The voice was so old. The man pulled on the robes, and for the first time Severus got a good look at the old man everyone thought was his father... Before he died of course. The old man's hair was grey, his skin worn and weathered. He was surprisingly well scarred. Severus hurried to put tea water on to boil, and got a bin to soak the old man's feet in hot water.

The old man let his creaking body fall into Severus' favorite armchair, and he gestured for firewhisky to be served with the tea. This came as no surprise, even as a dog he was fond of firewhiskey. The old mad twisted his ancient, gnarled hands around the hot cup of tea as he slipped his feet into the pool of hot water Severus had set before them.

Severus pulled up a spare stool, and waited patiently as the old man relaxed. Severus had never had a father aside from the old dog, and it was mind boggling to wonder what the old man had to say. For a long time the old man only sipped at his tea, occasionally taking a gulp of the firewhiskey.

"Son," The old man began, it made Severus feel strange to be called that... possibly for the first time. "I am an old dog. After this, I need you to promise to turn me back into what I am." That wasn't exactly what Severus expected him to say, but he gave a sad nod regardless.

The old man cleared his throat. "Did you know, my human name was Tobias? Toby for short." Severus shook his head at the old man's words. He had no idea. "Xpect you to still call me Dog though. Been Dog for... how old are you now boy?" Tobias said in his gravelly voice.

It took Severus a minute to count the years. "43?" He didn't mean for it to sound as questioning as it sounded. "I been a dog for 44 years then... Time passes quickly when your chasing that damn cat Filch keeps around. She use to be a human to dija know?" Severus was taken aback by the news.

"Whydya think he gets so upset when somthn happens to it? Use to be his wife. Deatheaters found out the squib married a muggle and she's got about the same story I do. Some death eater had mercy and turned her into a cat rather than kill'n her. On the condition she stayed that way oc'course." Severus shook his head in amazement.

Filch and Mrs. Norris had both passed on on the war, and for the first time Severus was deeply saddened by that. Toby continued speaking. "This place anit just a school, kid. This place is home for us folks what got no where to go... Folks like me, see?" Tobias looked at Severus with huge puppy dog eyes, and Severus could clearly see the resemblance between him and the dog he had grown up with.

"At tree. Womp'n Willow. Her name's Bermuda. She use to be a tree nymph, but got herself exiled from the forest for hitt'n a centaur. Big crime out in the woods. Ol' Dumbledore gave her a safe place guardn' that trap door for them wolves. My was she happy when Albus told her she could hit anything what came to close." The old man said, taking another swig of firewhiskey.

"Wolves?" Severus asked, speaking aloud to the old man for the first time since he had changed from a dog. "Ye. Them Hufflepuffs get all the dogs. Only reason that Lupin kid made it to Gryffindor 'z cuz it woulda shattered the kid to split him from his pack. Loyal dogs go to that house and be tak'n care of each other." The old man nodded at his tea.

"This'z good brew. Smells like the stuff your mum use to boil up. Anywho. A old dog learns a lot round this place. People ain't afraid to talk round a dog. Dog can't say nuthin." Tobias gave Severus a sneaky wink, hinting that he knew far more than he had ever let on.

"But out in the wood. Ye don't talk wit words. Ye talk wit smells. I love bein' a dog, ya know all bout wha's goin' on." The old man gave a wistful smile. "I even had pups o' my own once when I was a younger dog. Woulda introduced you, but the mum tried to bite me when I got close. but somewhere out there... me pups be runnin with packs o' their own..." The old man said wistfully.

"You're a good kid Sev." Tobias reached out and patted Severus' hand, Severus felt shockingly emotional at the old nickname and the gesture. "Is time for you ta have a pack o' yer own. I want ya to leave me here, an find yerself a good dame while ye can still have pups o' yer own. I'll always be able to sniff you out no matter where ya go." The old man patted Severus' hand again before leaning back into the chair.

Severus tried to laugh at the comment, but found that his throat was closed up with unshed tears. "I watched you boy..." Tobias said softly, his voice drifting off slightly. "I watched ye be loyal no matter what. 'M proud of ye, Sev. Any dog would be proud to call ye his pup." Toby looked at Severus with a heartfelt gaze.

"Would say yer mum'd be proud to but your mum was a b-" There was a tapping at the door in the middle of his sentence. Severus held a finger up for his adopted father to hold for a moment. He creaked the door open slightly to find headmaster McGonagall standing outside of his quarters. He opened the door more fully and gestured for her to enter "Headmaster, I would like for you to meet my father."


	3. Time to Go

Tobias rose and stepped out of the bucket of hot water his feet were in to give McGonagall a small bow and a kiss on the hand. She had been stopping by to see when Severus was planning on making his departure, but was delighted to have a moment to converse with Toby. He informed her of some of the current politics of the forbidden forest, and of a few specific locations students were using for unsightly behavior.

The more she spoke to him, the more enthused headmaster McGonagall became. "I agree that it would be beneficial to all parties if Toby was to stay at the castle as a dog... but perhaps you could show me what particular spell you used to turn him into a man?" She asked hesitantly. "I believe he would be of great use to me if he could speak more often." She laughed.

Severus went about writing the changing spells down as McGonagall dove into a deeper conversation with his father. It unnerved him to realize the two were probably about the same age. He handed the parchment to her, and shortly thereafter she was taking notes on it of his particular favorite foods and the preferred delicacies of the castles other less than human inhabitants.

"It'd amaze you, but once I buried a fish from the lake at Bermuda's roots, and she's never attempted to hit me since!" Tobias exclaimed, and Severus noted that he was being much more verbally formal with the headmaster. Severus returned to packing his things and tried not to think about the implications of his fathers friendliness toward the headmaster.

After headmaster McGonagall took her leave Severus and Toby spent hours talking, and both ended up crying at least once. For a while Tobias even helped him pack, and once he was ready to leave, Severus shared in the firewhiskey his father was drinking. At last it was time for Severus to take his leave. He readied his wand to turn his father and closest companion back into the dog he had grown up with.

"Wait." Toby held a grizzled hand up. "Make me a promise, Sev." He said in his deep, gruff voice. Severus nodded, and waited for his father to continue. "Get that dame I was talk'n about. Have a pup. Make the family that you never had, and be the father I always wished I could have been." Toby said, Severus nodded, but Tobias made him promise verbally.

"I promise I will." Severus said softly, already wondering how he would convince a woman to have children with an old, angry potions master. "An when ye send 'at kid to school... Give it a real damn pet. 'M tired of see'n parents send'n their brats here with toads and rats. 'At vampire girl had an owl what she left at the school b'cause she di'nt care 'bout it. Its a disgrace. Get that kid somethin' ta care 'bout." Severus nodded, and tried not to laugh.

He wasn't prone to laughter, but for that to be the one thing his father wanted him to promise was amusing. "I mean, come'on kid, yer mum didn't even like ye that much but sent ye ta school with yer dad at yer side. I wan' you to find sumthin to top that." Severus nodded at the old mans words, and promised. His eyes widened at the prospect of needing to find a pet better than Dog to send to school with a non-existent child from his non-existent wife.

"I promise I will, sir." Severus bowed slightly, unsure of why he was promising the impossible. With a wave of his wand and a quick incantation, before him stood an old dog that was struggling to get out of his robes. Dog wandered closer to him, eager for a pat on the head before trotting out of his quarters. Severus gave a sigh, and grabbed his bags.

With a levitation charm for the bag, and a bit of walking he found himself at the front gate. Dog and McGonagall stood next to the thestral pulled carriage to wave him off. Inside of the carriage Severus was surprised to find a number of train tickets to varying locations with no travel dates, and a purse of galleons with a note from McGonagall.

_"Travel the world before you settle down at your potions shop." _The note read. Severus gave a single short laugh. Of course she would know he intended to start a potions shop, it was what he was best at. He flipped through the tickets and pulled out the first one that caught his fancy. Ireland. What was Ireland like? He had only read about it a few times, but had never thought of going there.

He had a small fortune stashed away from his years teaching, and the purse appeared to be what he would have received from the past year teaching with severance pay. He made about a hundred galleons a year, but spent under twenty annually. A ticket to Ireland had not been on his list of things to purchase.

The carriage came to a stop at the Hogwarts Express, and Severus got on the train with his only thought being 'What is Ireland like?'. After a day's travel, he got off the train and handed the ticket to the ticket master at the station. This would be his first time riding a train other than the Hogwarts Express. McGonagall had been kind enough to purchase him tickets for all wizard trains, which could take him straight to the states without boarding a plane or boat.


	4. To Ireland

Severus boarded the train to Ireland and found a relatively empty compartment. After a few minutes of scowling at the prior inhabitants he found to have a compartment to himself. With a contented sigh Severus pulled out a book he had always intended to read, and never found the time for.

Four chapters later a man burst into the cabin, vomited black sludge unto the carpet, convulsed... and died. Severus looked at the man, then his book, then back to the man. For a moment he wondered if he had been slipped drugs once again. When he was young James had once laced the edges of his book pages with various potions, causing him to have odd reactions when he received paper cuts. Once his hand had begun oozing green puss, another time he began sneezing so hard he had to be taken to the medical wing to avoid suffocation.

This book was just old enough that it could still be laced as well. Severus inspected his fingers for paper cuts and waved his wand over the book to examine it for any medical properties. He truly expected to fine a hallucinogenic potion coating the edges, and spiders crawling under his skin or some drivel of the sort. If he had been dosed with a strong enough potion to see men vomiting black and dying on the carpet, he would need to remain seated in case he suddenly believed out the window was the only way to remain safe from man eating eight legged crocodiles in his cabin.

Alas, no crocodiles or spiders appeared. His fingertips were unharmed, and the book was untainted. Severus slowly rose from his seat and waved a wand over the man, doing a through magical examination. If this man was contagious through touch, he would rather not find out. If it was through some airborne property, he would already be infected.

Severus felt an odd spark of joy when he felt a magical pulse coming from the mans right leg. He knelt down and plucked from the mans leg a quill. Not a writing quill, but some sort of animals quill... How curious. Severus slipped a vial out of his bag and dropped the quill into it. A bead of black oozed from its tip when it hit the glass. He had seen something like this once before... but was having a difficult time recalling what it was.


	5. Poison on the Train

The quill had obviously been poisoned, and was not naturally so. Severus pondered over the reason for murdering in such a manner. It was complicated, sloppy, and left an obvious trail... Severus stepped into the hallway and over the body of another convulsing victim. People ran and screamed in all directions, Severus thought only of the quill. There were more quills scattered on the ground. Two more dead or dying, blackened quills protruding from their palms. Severus found his way to the only quiet cabin on the train. Quills littered the floor, and the door was broken open. The affected passengers must have originated from this cabin, whatever had poisoned them had done so all at once.

Severus stood in the deadly cabin, and awaited the thing that had poisoned the men. Had it been a designed contraption that had launched the quills like poison darts? An animal that had been doused in poison and let loose? If so, what had aggravated it? For a moment Severus wavered, silently mumbled to himself. "I have died. I have faced down a giant three headed dog. I have frightened the greatest wizards on earth with a glance. I have dined with the Dark Lord. I have lived more in a lifetime than most do in six. I have nothing to fear from this new evil" His words did not erase the new feeling of fear. There must be a magic in the room that gave him this feeling of fear. He would need to be on guard.

Severus heard a rustle in the corner of the room and pointed his wand in its direction. "Give me one good reason not to hex you to oblivion." He growled, furious that something had caused him to feel in such a manner. His wand was pointed at a jet black ball of quills tucked under a chair, the thing appeared to be about three wand lengths in size. Large for an animal. The thing was quivering, and it was that which caused the sound. "You have three seconds." Severus stated in a firm voice. The thing had murdered at least four, there was no cause to try to contain it if it seemed unwilling. Movement.

Severus readied his wand as the creature moved... it twisted to face him, and Severus felt his wand arm droop. It was no monster. It was the face of a child. A monster he could have hexed out of existence. A violent monster he would even have felt good about destroying. But the face of the child was pale, its lips white with fear. The fear that had been overcoming him was that of the child's, not his own. It was his own ability in occlumency that left him so vulnerable to the child's blaring emotions. Severus swore under his breath.

"I have asked you for a single reason, and you have given me one. Now stand." He commanded, storing his wand as a show of faith. He would be able to redraw it faster than the creature could attack at any rate. The creature crawled slowly from under the seat, but stayed curled on the ground. At its current stance, it was much larger than a cat but certainly smaller than Dog. Its face looked at the ground. "I do not like to repeat myself." Severus snapped. If it was simply a cursed child, he could handle it. The thing rose to its feet.

Severus turned away from it to hide his reddening face. It was certainly female. Its legs had been curled under its belly, and apparently only its back had quills. Everything else was covered in a very thin layer of fur. Severus removed his traveling cloak and tossed it behind himself at the girl. "Take care with it, I like that one." He mumbled. It was a very high quality cloak with many protection spells woven into it... he knew despite his precaution that the cloak would be ruined by the time it was returned to him.

When he dared face the girl again she was wrapped in the cloak and rubbing it softly on her cheek. It looked like a house elf with its first scarf. Severus got down on one knee to look the girl in the eye. Her huge black eyes stared just past him, but her face was pointed so they looked like they were looking at him. She obviously had vision problems. "Did you kill those men?" Severus asked. The girls eyes instantly teared up and Severus felt a silent blood curdling scream of emotion echo from her body. She nodded slowly. She knew she had caused their deaths.

Severus was hesitant to ask the next question, but it seemed right. "Did you mean to?" The girl shook her head violently, her quills rattled eerily with the movement. Severus heaved a sigh. "Are you sorry for what you did?" He asked, the girl nodded just as violently, her eyes filled to the brim with emotion. Severus hung his head. He had two options. Assume the girl was lying and dangerous and alert the other passengers to her location... Or assume she was telling the truth and aid the fugitive in her escape.

"Damn you." He said and moved to the door. He stood facing the door with his arm held slightly outward and waited. When the girl didn't move he snapped "Are you coming or not?" Over his shoulder, and she instantly ran to wrap her arms around his. She barely made it to his waist, and from a distance looked as though she could be his slightly hunchbacked daughter. He escorted her to his train cabin and awaited their arrival in Ireland. The body had already been moved from his cabin, but the black stain remained in the carpet.


	6. Not a Porcupine

Severus knew the last leg of the train ride would be a long one at best, so he removed his least favorite book from his bag and handed it to her. It was an outdated potions book with many less than perfect potions. Some were useful, but most were rubbish. He wouldn't mind much if it needed to be pitched with the cloak when she was gone. The girl received the book with excitement and looked over the cover carefully before gently opening the first page.

The only thing on the first page was the authors name and some production information. She carefully turned the first page after giving it a thorough looking at. She continued in the same manner until she reached a page with a picture on it. To his surprise she gasped in excitement and sniffed the picture. She seemed disappointed when it had no odor other than paper. She stared at the picture for a good while before resuming her slow page turning. Severus cleared his throat.

The girl jumped at the sound and looked at him expectantly. "Can you read?" Severus asked. The girl shook her head slowly, but pointed at the picture and stiffed. "You can't read, but you can smell?" Severus asked, and the girl nodded. It was an obscure answer, but with how poorly her eyes seemed to focus it almost made sense. He assumed that whatever had caused the quills to protrude from her back was probably a poorly made animagus or polyjuice potion. If that were the case, she would have many physical abnormalities that more closely resembled her animal of choice than human attributes.

Now the question remained... What was her animal of choice? Severus cleared his throat again to ask her some questions. "Can you speak?" He asked. It was not unusual for these kinds of mistakes to cause the loss of vocal usage, or if the user did try to speak... The noise would be horrifying. Not animal, and certainly not human. As expected, the girl shook her head. "Do you know... How shall I put this... Do you know what animal you are?" He asked, if someone else had done this to her, she may not actually know. She thought for a minute, and nodded.

Severus pulled a writing quill and parchment from his bag and began drawing his best renditions of any thorned animal he could think of. A porcupine, an odd lizard he had once seen, and a bird with needle like feathers. He held the scribbles up for her to look at. "Can you tell me which one?" The girl stared at the page and then shook her head. She took the parchment from him and picked up his writing quill. She flipped the parchment over to leave herself more room and drew a very large picture of a porcupine without a tail, a long snout and tiny legs.


	7. Hedgehog

After some random guessing, she admitted to being a hedgehog... "Did someone do this to you?" He asked slowly. She shook her head. The rustling of her quills was disconcerting, but he was getting use to it. "Did you do this to yourself?" He asked, as the next logical question. She nodded and gave him a proud smile. The odd girl had intentionally mixed her blood with a hedgehog... "I don't know if I can, but would you like me to fix you?" Severus asked. The damage might be irreparable, but he could offer.

The girl shook her head adamantly and a couple of the poison tipped quills fell off of her onto the seat cushion. Severus tried to think of something more to say, but the girl was staring at the pictures in the book again, so he returned to his own reading. Eventually the train reached his stop and he stood to exit. The girl followed him. He wandered around the town until he found an inn, and the girl shuffled after him. She tripped a number of times over his robe, but he did not help her up.

When he had reached a suitable inn he paid for a room and wandered up to it to rest. Still the girl shadowed him. "Don't you have anywhere else to be?" He snapped as he opened the door to his room. She shook her head and dropped more quills in the hall. Severus groaned. Now that he had a chance to think about it, he was familiar with the type of poison she was covered in. There was a good chance that the poisonous properties had worn off an hour ago due to exposure to the air... but it would still make anyone violently ill if they got pricked by her.

He ushered her inside and pointed her to the bathroom. "When you come out, I expect every speck of black to be gone." He didn't actually expect that, but he wanted her clean. The poison was water soluble, and wouldn't be terrible to get off, but he was NOT going to be helping her scrub her back. When she had locked the door he changed out of his traveling cloths and into something more comfortable. A simple black robe would do.

He took a coin from the purse Minerva had given him, and went out to see if a local bookstore was still open. He was in luck. It was. He asked the store owner for the books he was interested in, paid with a coin, and flipped one of the books to the page he was interested it. "The proper care and feeding of your new hedgehog." Perfect. It wasn't impossible for a human animal transformation to go wrong, but the hybrid that was born of it would need to remember its peculiar dietary needs.

When he had the information he needed he went to a close by general store and picked up the food items he would be needing. A pink hooded parka caught his eye while he was waiting to purchase his food items, so he picked it up as well. His old robe would need to be thrown out. When he had all of his things, he returned to his room at the inn, knocking before he entered. He heard an odd scraping sound that he assumed was the girl pawing the ground as permission for him to enter.

He cracked the door open to be sure. She was wrapped in a towel, but there wasn't much else for her to be dressed in. Severus dropped his purchases on the bed and went to the bathroom to do damage control. He expected to find smudgy black paw prints on every surface available, and small pools of black goop and quills on the floor. What he found instead blew his mind. "Did you do this?" He snapped. She nodded. "How in the fairying forests did you manage to do THIS." He stared at her abashed. She did no more than look at the ground.


End file.
